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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2012 at 10:00 am and is filed under International Politics.
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From this its simple math that the contribution to the greenhouse effect by man is far greater than the 0.117% of man released co2 in the total atmosphere Although contributing to many other physical and chemical reactions, the major atmospheric constituents, nitrogen (N2), oxygen (O2), and argon (Ar), are not greenhouse gases.

1. Is the planet overall warming?
As Jones has now been forced publicly to concede, no, not since 1995 (ie 15 years), notwithstanding an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration of 4-5%.
2. Has it warmed in the past?
Yes, many times. It has also cooled – likewise many times.
3. When it was colder, was there less CO2?
On the contrary, atmospheric CO2 concentrations during the global ice age between the Ordivician/Silurian epochs were ten times those of today and during the Jurassic/Cretacious five times.
4. Is it unusually warm now?
No. Overall, the planet has warmed by a mere 0.7°C over the past 150 years or so, and even this is debatable; how do you measure? We’re emerging from the LIA, for which huge amounts of evidence exist (paintings, Thames ice fairs, literary allusions, etc), so a modest increase in global mean temperatures is anyway unsurprising. The LIA followed the MWP, also with lots of evidence – cathedral building, viniculture in Northern latitudes, Greenland etc. The phenomenon was worldwide. The MWP was a lot warmer than ambient temperatures today (again, as Jones has been forced publicly to acknowledge). Furthermore, surface temperature data collected from weather station thermometers have consistently failed to tally with satellite and weather balloon data. In addition, post Climategate, we now know with certainty that AGW climate scientists themselves have no confidence in their own temperature measurements, also unsurprising since many were simply concocted – see below qu.12. [Kevin Trenberth, a major AGW proponent in the USA: “Well I have my own article on “where the heck is global warming?” We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. …

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t. The … data published in the August … 2009 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate. ]

5. What is The Greenhouse Effect?
The GHE posits that the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere acts as a global blanket preventing solar radiation from being immediately reflected back into space – ie a good thing, for otherwise we’d freeze. However, the GHE is a 130 year old speculation, whose original proponent intended the phrase to be seen as an analogy; it was not suggested that it should be taken literally. The atmosphere is a continuum not an enclosed system so, while it may be true that the atmosphere slows the rate of infra-red radiation back to space, ultimately escaping energy will equate to energy originally absorbed from solar radiation. Moreover, climate change is affected by a range of “game changing” variables such as the sun (see qu. 16), possibly cosmic ray incidence and probably shifting ocean currents. It has also been suggested plausibly that, on a geological time scale, changes to the tilt of the earth (Milankovic cycles) may be a determinant – likewise volcanism, plate tectonics. The system overall is chaotic and not understood. It is a serious criticism of AGW “science”, though by no means the most serious, that it fails to acknowledge adequately the significance of fundamental ignorance.
6. What are the greenhouse gases?
There are several, water vapour being by far the most significant – responsible for 95% of the GHE. Why? Because H2O absorbs radiation over almost the entire IR spectrum. CO2 is only a secondary ghg, exists in minute overall concentrations (0.0385% of the atmosphere as a whole), and absorbs over only two narrow bandwidths, most usually quoted the 15 micron band. Consequently, the radiative potential of CO2 quickly becomes saturated. Other GHGs are occasionally mentioned, and include methane and nitrous oxide.
7. Do CO2 concentrations explain recent climatic variation – last 150 years, say, but especially since late 70s?
No. Even CO2 protagonists acknowledge that CO2 of itself explains nothing. The first 20 ppm of atmospheric CO2 give rise to roughly 1½ºC of warming. The next 1½ºC requires a further 400 ppm, and the next 1ºC calls for a further 1000 ppm. We are currently standing at about 385 ppm. In short, the forcing relationship between CO2 and surface temperatures is logarithmic not linear, for which reason alone its effects are self-limiting. It requires a feedback mechanism, for which H2O has been enlisted as the agent, ie more CO2 means more warming, which means more water vapour, which means more warming. However, and rarely if ever mentioned by AGW proponents, H2O also produces cooling by virtue of two mechanisms – evaporation and cloud formation. 70% of the earth’s surface comprises ocean and much of the land surface also transpires, so evaporative cooling is significant. Clouds directly radiate heat back into space. Overall, it now seems that H2O has a negative feedback greater than any positive feedback. Though they have consistently denied its importance, CO2 protagonists have never understood the influence of clouds as well as several other natural variables (eg so called aerosols – mostly pollutants, such as SO2, oxides of nitrogen, etc often blown off by volcanoes but occasionally attributed to power stations, when facts inconveniently fail to support theory). They have never successfully integrated them into their models. Amongst much other evidence of technical incompetence, Climategate has now revealed that Jones/Mann et al also failed to reconcile the energy balance between incoming/outgoing radiation. Even other AGW proponents have found this startling; the Law of Conservation of Energy is a fundamental of physics. “

1 Is the planet warming: Yes the once in a century temperature experienced in 1998 has now been exceeded twice this century
The heat content of the ocean has continued to increase over the last 16 years as around 80% of the heat goes into the ocean and the rest into the atmosphere to say it’s not warming is ignoring the truth. incidentally this was the “travesty” in the climate emails we did not have accurate temperatures for the deep ocean we do now

2 It has been warmer before in the history of the earth:The temperature pre civilization is a red herring the world did not have 7,000,000,000 of us in fact The world population has experienced continuous growth since the end of the Great Famine and the Black Death in 1350, when it stood at around 370 million. Once the world was molten rock would that still be ok for us?

3 The MWP was a lot warmer than ambient temperatures today: Funny Wat was posting a couple of weeks ago that is it was only as warm as the fifty’s again misrepresenting research to spin the truth we do not know if the MWP was global and the research does not support you contention that it was warmer than today

The rest of your post contains fringe science that is not worth refuting. I posted the actual known contribution of green house gasses if you disagree go write a paper and have it published else wise you will have to take known mainstream science as accurate

David, you believe in AGW. You’ve admitted as much. As such I really don’t understand why you keep posting things like this – I accept that it’s popular with many of your readers but couldn’t you be using your respected position in the blogosphere to be changing some hearts and minds on this issue?

Hell, I’m not saying you should be calling for carbon tax or whatever, but the science of this is just BS. The raw numbers are meaningless without context, even if it’s essential to life you can have too much of a good thing, and yes, it IS discernable from natural variations. You know that. So why?

The adverse economic impacts of unchecked climate change, based on the predictions of both scientists and economists, are likely to be massive. Now I’m sure you feel that this whole thing’s become a political football and some of the solutions that are proposed on the left are as bad as the problem itself. Trouble is, we’re the only ones discussing it. Echo chambers aren’t conducive to good policy. If the right would actually engage on this issue and start talking about how we can soften the blow we might be able to come up with some palatable, non-statist market-driven solutions that will encourage innovation in the energy sector without increasing unemployment or reducing our global competitive advantage. Heck, I’d like to see that; there are very few outside the parliamentary left who genuinely like cap and trade or carbon tax solutions.

AGW either is happening, or it isn’t. The bleating of politicians on either side of the spectrum has absolutely no impact on the facts of the matter. My acceptance of the known facts (in concurrance with virtually every climatologist, and literally every national science academy on the planet) has nothing whatsoever to do with my political affiliations. I would never repost Labour’s hyperbole on the youth wage because whether I like it or not I know that the best research we have on minimum wages suggests that they depress employment. Neither should you be reposting denialist garbage like this, even if it’s in agreement with your broader political preferences. You know better. That’s why I read your blog despite my disagreement with 75% of its content.

It’s the same reason that Al Gore always refers to “Global Warming Pollution”.

Incidentally – if we were to be correct it wouldn’t be a Carbon Dioxide Tax it would be a Carbon-Dioxide-Equivalent tax – different greenhouse gases have different contributions to warming. Carbon just gets all the fame because most countries use a lot of coal so Carbon Dioxide is their biggest contributor. In NZ it could equally be called a Methane tax…

The adverse economic impacts of unchecked climate change, based on the predictions of both scientists and economists, are likely to be massive.

You told a lot of lies and made a lot of false assumptions in your post in an attempt to defend your politically motivated position. But I will over look all that, it is expected behaviour from a socialist.

Both economists and climate scientists have miserable records at predicting future events. That is a fact. There are just too many variables.